PLATFORM

PURPOSE

Workers in Rhode Island and across the world are routinely denied the necessities for a dignified life. They are saddled with medical debt, exorbitant rent, and student loans. They work long hours under grueling conditions for unaccountable bosses. Moreover, they are forced to accept environmental devastation for the sake of corporate profits.

In a true democracy, the countless people who want control over their jobs — as well as the rights to medical treatment, housing, education, and a habitable Earth — could use society’s wealth to meet these needs. However, the world is increasingly divided into two opposing groups. There is the vast majority: the people of every race, gender, and nationality who must work to survive. On the other side, there is the ruling class: the capitalists who use the labor of others to create profits for themselves. They underpay their workers, raise prices, strip the planet of its resources, and pursue their interests over the interests of the many.

There is only one way to ensure that society is organized according to the will of the majority: collective ownership and democratic control of natural resources, technology, and businesses by workers, instead of unaccountable billionaires. All people who make their living working for a wage have an interest in creating a democratic economy. Without their labor capitalism does not exist; without their consent it cannot continue. When united, workers can use their collective power to radically restructure society. 

Rhode Island DSA’s purpose is to unite the working class of Rhode Island with workers across the world in a movement for socialism — government by the many, not the few.

STRATEGY

A Party of the Working Class

The two major political parties serve the interests of the ruling class. Working people need a party of their own.

Rhode Island DSA advocates building a party that is very different from the Democrats and Republicans. A socialist party does not just put up candidates for office every two years. It is a democratic organization, run by the working class and funded by membership dues rather than corporate donors. Party leaders and politicians must abide by the democratic decisions of the membership. The party must also be active year-round through political education, social activities, and fighting for the dignity of working people. 

Rhode Island DSA believes that a socialist party must win political power for the working class through a mass movement. The U.S. government is not democratic (as proved by institutions such as the intelligence agencies and the Supreme Court), and the working-class majority will not be able to take power by simply winning a majority of seats in the legislature. Instead, socialist politicians must organize in opposition to the existing system. Rather than making backroom deals with capitalist parties, socialists in office win reforms by exposing corporate politicians and calling on ordinary people to fight.

Although the Bernie Sanders campaigns raised awareness of socialism, it will be necessary to run candidates independent of the Democrats as part of the project of building a socialist party — starting here in Rhode Island.

A Fighting Labor Movement

Without the labor of their employees, capitalists cannot turn a profit. Because of this, workers have enormous power when they strike — and when workers unite across industries, they can win major political demands by bringing the economy to a halt. Therefore, an effective socialist party must have a strong base in the labor unions, especially within the industries essential to production and distribution.

Unfortunately, many unions are run by bureaucratic leaders who stifle democracy and collaborate with capitalists. Socialists must organize from within the labor movement to help rank-and-file union members take the wheel and fight the boss. 

Rhode Island DSA believes unions should be democratic and fighting institutions. In a healthy union, members democratically control contract negotiations, decide when to authorize or end a strike, democratically elect all union officers (and limit their pay), and determine the union’s political activities. Such a union rejects “win-win” trickle-down schemes that increase the boss’s profits, and instead uses direct actions such as strikes to extract bigger concessions. The union also fights for the working class as a whole — across workplaces, industries, and countries — by taking on broader demands such as Medicare for all and immigrant rights. 

Ultimately, Rhode Island DSA aims to bring rank-and-file union members into the DSA and break unions away from the Democratic Party. However, because union density is low, unions must also organize new workplaces for the socialist project to be successful, and Rhode Island DSA supports all efforts by workers to unionize.

DEMANDS

Economic Freedom

Rhode Island DSA demands economic freedom for the working class, not the owning class. Every worker in Rhode Island deserves a good-paying job and free time to spend with friends and family. Natural resources, infrastructure, major industries, and banks must be brought into public ownership and democratically managed for the public good, not private profit.

Economic freedom means freedom for all workers regardless of race or gender. Rhode Island DSA calls for public investment in black and minority neighborhoods, and an end to the racist segregation that divides the working class and leaves some neighborhoods with less. Women should not be forced to work more for less pay: the state must provide free childcare, paid parental leave, and reproductive healthcare.

Housing

  • High-quality, mixed-income, racially integrated housing — owned by the state of Rhode Island, cooperatively managed by tenants, and constructed with union labor. Rents of these units must be capped at 30% of an occupant’s income.

  • Statewide universal rent control limiting rent increases to no more than 4% a year.

  • No tax breaks or subsidies for luxury housing.

Healthcare

  • Medicare for all in Rhode Island: single-payer health insurance with fully comprehensive coverage (including mental health, vision, and dental), free at the point of service. 

  • No legislative interference in the decisions of patients and their physicians — including care for transgender people, and contraception and abortion.

  • Medical debt forgiveness.

Education

  • More investment in public schools, and no budget cuts. Improve school buildings, increase counselors and support staff, and guarantee a minimum income of $60,000 per year for teachers.

  • A moratorium on the expansion of private charter schools.

  • Fund schools through state rather than local taxes, and redraw districts wherever possible to increase racial integration.

  • Tuition-free pre-K, trade schools, colleges, and universities.

  • Student debt forgiveness.

Higher Wages

  • A minimum wage of $25 per hour, tied to inflation and productivity.

Family and Childcare

  • Free, publicly provided child- and eldercare.

  • A minimum of 14 weeks parental leave with full pay, available to workers regardless of gender. 

Green Jobs and Infrastructure

  • State ownership of utility providers (gas, electricity, and water). End shut-offs and rate hikes. 

  • Construction of new state-owned renewable energy sources, including offshore wind and solar grids. Ensure green energy facilities are built and maintained with union jobs that offer better pay and working conditions than any fossil fuel jobs they displace.

  • No more fleecing taxpayers with “public-private partnerships.” Construction, ownership, and maintenance of roads and rail by the state. Expand RIPTA service to all of Rhode Island, electrify buses, and make the bus free. 

  • Shut down corporate polluters and clean up polluted communities, protect public land and natural resources, and guarantee public access to the shoreline.

  • No new fossil fuel infrastructure or corporate welfare for fossil fuel projects.

Worker Ownership

  • Subsidies for worker cooperatives and tax incentives that favor cooperatively owned and managed firms over traditional businesses.

  • Right of first refusal for employees and unions to purchase businesses up for sale and convert them into cooperatives.

Taxation

  • Repeal Rhode Island’s 2006 tax cuts for the rich.

  • No “tax stabilization agreements” for wealthy developers and corporations.

  • Raise taxes on corporations, individual incomes over $100,000, and wealthy nonprofits including Brown University.

Civil Rights and Democracy

Rhode Island DSA opposes both state and corporate actors who infringe on working people’s rights. Political liberties must be protected, including freedom of speech, press, and assembly. And all people must be protected from discrimination — including women, racial and ethnic minorities, religious minorities, gay people, transgender people, and disabled people.

The state bureaucracy, especially its military and police agencies, needs to be broken up and put under direct democratic control. Rhode Island DSA demands a truly democratic government in Rhode Island and the U.S., with ordinary workers taking up roles in the state instead of unaccountable professionals. Power must be given to elected and immediately recallable representatives of the people.

Fair Elections

  • Exclusively public financing of elections with equal funds provided to each candidate in a given race.

  • Establish automatic voter registration, repeal Rhode Island’s voter ID law, and make Election Day a statewide holiday.

  • Give power to democratically and proportionally elected legislatures. End undemocratic institutions — including the U.S. Senate, the Electoral College, and the Supreme Court.

Workers’ Rights

  • Ban at-will employment in order to protect workers from arbitrary and discriminatory firing — particularly workers who may be punished for union organizing or political speech.

  • Repeal the Taft-Hartley Act and guarantee workers the rights to organize a union and strike.

End Police Violence and Mass Incarceration

  • Community control over public safety through local, democratic boards (directly elected or filled by lottery) that are empowered to hire and fire police officers.

  • Repeal Rhode Island’s Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights and end policies like qualified immunity which shield police from accountability.

  • Transfer police duties to unarmed first responders wherever possible, remove “student resource officers” from schools, and ban use of military weaponry by the police.

  • End cash bail, mandatory minimum sentences, solitary confinement, and felon disenfranchisement.

  • Ban all private prisons and close the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls.

  • Decriminalize crimes of poverty, including selling sex and drug possession; release nonviolent drug offenders and expunge all convictions for sale or possession of marijuana.

International Peace and Solidarity

Capitalist imperialism is the biggest engine of oppression worldwide. It not only harms people abroad; it also takes away American tax dollars from domestic needs and spends them on endless wars. On top of that, the U.S. imperialist state has built a sprawling military-and-intelligence apparatus that is often turned against American citizens. 

Rhode Island DSA stands in solidarity with all oppressed peoples and their struggles for democratic self-determination. Capitalism is an international system, so all workers — including immigrants and workers abroad — are part of the struggle for socialism. 

Immigrant Rights

  • Prohibit Rhode Island law enforcement from cooperating with ICE; ensure immigrants have access to all public services. 

  • Full citizenship for all undocumented immigrants currently living in the U.S.

Trade

  • Repeal so-called free trade agreements. Negotiate trade deals with fair labor and environmental standards for all workers internationally.

  • Enforce capital controls to prevent capitalists from moving their money and businesses out of the country.

End Colonialism and Imperialism

  • Self-determination and debt forgiveness for all U.S. territories.

  • No more U.S. military aid to Israel. Solidarity with the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement. Protect the speech rights of BDS activists.

  • End the U.S. sanctions which collectively punish the citizens of Cuba, Venezuela, Russia, and Iran, among others.

Stop Funding Wars

  • Eliminate all state subsidies to the defense industry in Rhode Island, in particular military contractors such as Raytheon and Textron.

  • Cut the national military budget, stop unconditionally arming Ukraine, and end all support for the Saudi war in Yemen.

  • Close all foreign U.S. military bases. Eliminate the current military institutions and replace them with a democratically controlled national guard.